13

Mahmood Majid came over in the middle of the week. He was out of his white uniform, and wore a plaid suit with small lapels, of obviously local material and make. His hair was slightly wet.

“How do you feel?” he asked immediately.

“Fine. I feel so much better already. I’ve hardly had any pain since I started the diet and the medication.”

He sat down on the rug in the courtyard where my mother, uncle, and I were sitting, having tea. The samovar hissed and gave out tiny sparks.

“It’s lucky we have that good X-ray machine now. I made them get it.”

“We’re all very grateful to you,” my mother said, pouring some tea from the tea pot into a cup and adding water to it from the samovar. She put the cup and a saucer before Mahmood Majid.

Mahmood Majid talked to her and my uncle for a while, comfortably, as if he were related to them. Then he said to me, “I’d like to take you to a section that’s historical. It has a mosque, a small shrine, a bazaar. Then we’ll go to a restaurant in the bazaar and eat. But you have to wear a chador for the shrine, otherwise they won’t let you in.”

My mother gave me an extra chador she had, smiling at me as I put it on.

In the car I slipped off the chador. I’d put it back on when I needed it. He glanced at me and smiled. “Is that uncomfortable for you?”

“It feels very heavy on my head.”

“If you wore it a few times you’d get used to it.”

He turned on the radio. A woman was singing, her voice laden with passion—a song about the bittersweet miseries of love. Mahmood Majid became silent, looking entranced, listening to the song.

I tried to imagine making love to Mahmood Majid or falling in love with him. A barrier stood between us. He seemed like a brother to me, someone I knew too well deep down.

“Doesn’t she have a beautiful voice?” he asked.

“I like it,” I said. “When I first came here everything—even songs—seemed strange but that has been changing gradually.”

“Of course things look different once you get used to them. I remember our conversation when I drove you to the hospital.”

We passed a square, a tea house, surrounded by almond and cherry trees, a group of camels kneeling by a shed full of straw. Then, abruptly, we were outside of the town. There were scattered huts in the distance and ruins of old inns. We passed occasional cars. Men and women, travelling on donkeys, went by. Then a complex of buildings appeared inside a low clay wall.

“That’s where we’re going,” he said.

I slipped the chador back on. He parked outside of the wall, where there were a few cars and buses, and led me inside.

Behind the wall people swarmed in doorways and on shady verandas. Several children had gathered under a tree with strings tied to its branches. The nasal drone of a Moslem priest filled the air.